General Chat

At 9pm on BBC 2 tonight.
Dramatisation of the first murder on a train in 1864


Of course, it clashes with Eddie Izzard's DNA search :-P

really enjoying this programme Maggie

D'you think this is him?

name: Thomas William Larkin Briggs
burial date: 28 Apr 1864
burial place: Hackney, Middlesex
record set: RG8_0046

don't think that is him - the month of death was July

Sounds like him, Ann.

I really enjoyed the programme. Very clever the way the journalist walked through modern doors into the Victorian era.
I also liked the way they just spoke facts, and it wasn't 'dumbed down' - ie everything repeated, in case your brain cell had fallen asleep
:-D

I was particuarly intrested, as my gg uncle and a friend tried to de-rail a train at Cheddington in 1851, bu putting chains and trees on the line. Fortunately, the train was going full speed (40mph) so just ploughed through the debris.
He was caught by a railway detective, pretending to be a match manufacturer coming to the village and lodging at the local pub.
He went around all the pubs listening to the locals' gossip.
Gg uncle wasn't the sharpest tool in the box. Apart from telling some passing local teenagers what he intended doing - then threateinng them if they told anyone, he said in court, he was at a pub in the neighbouring village - yet he'd seen two men coming up the embankment from the railway line - in Cheddington!! :-S

He only got 2 years with hard labour.

OH and I throughly enjoyed this Victorian era. Recorded Eddie last night and tonight.

it was brilliantly done

more likely this one I think


name: Thomas Briggs
age: 56
gender: Male
birthplace: Cartmel, Lancashire
relationship to head of household: Head
record type: Household

Wasn't he in his 70's?

Free BMD has, Sept quarter 1864
Briggs
Thomas
Hackney
1b 272

Yes, very well done.

...still thought Muller looked sweet :-)

Wish I could ahve seen it!


My gt grandfather was killed falling out of a train in 1877

For some reason I have not yet discovered, he was in Oldham, Lancashire, instead of Buckinghamshire, when it happened.

It took me years to find out the details, but I did finally manage to get hold of the newspaper report of his death ............

................... it seems he was on the train from Oldham Clegg St Station to the next station, Park Bridge. The train was coming into that station when he leant against the door to see out.

Unfortunately, it was on the side away from the platform, and it had not been locked ............. the door swung open and he fell out, cracking his head on one of the railway lines.

They took him back to the Clegg Street Station in a wheelbarrow, and he died there some 4 hours later.

The coroner did suggest that there might a case to be made against the railway company ................ but I guess the family was too poor to hire lawyers etc




so not a murder ................. but a gruesome death nevertheless




sylvia